


Letters

by NintenGoAway (DapperMuffin)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Cute Dan Howell/Phil Lester, Cute Ending, Dan Howell/Phil Lester Comfort, Depressed Dan Howell, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst, M/M, bc they ARE cute tbh, i cant believe theres actually a tag for that, no beta we die like me, no wait I can, theyre just cute ok, which tbh is only bc my two beta readers (whom i rely on) never responded :/
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:48:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22930504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DapperMuffin/pseuds/NintenGoAway
Summary: Somehow, Phil always knows when Dan's feeling down, and he always knows what to say to make Dan feel better.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 4
Kudos: 27





	Letters

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! This is my first Phanfic, and I'm a little nervous because I haven't really interacted with many other Phannies, but I hope this is alright.(Tbh I was scrolling through cute quotes on Pinterest and I was like "b ut wh at if that was a fic")  
> (crossposted on Tumblr @muffin-arts, feel free to drop me a reblog if you want, but I'll shut up now, enjoy)

Somehow, he always knew.

Whenever Dan was having a bad day—maybe he’d dropped his ice cream, or maybe he was having his fifth existential crisis this month—Phil sent a text. It was never anything elaborate or too long-winded, it was something simple like, “I miss you <3,” or, “I heard a song that made me think of you and I smiled.” Whatever it ended up being, it always managed to turn Dan’s day around.

But Phil had taken a trip to the next city over, without Dan. It had only been two days so far, but Dan was already starting to feel the effects.

Dan had been lying on his bed, face buried in his pillow, for about 20 minutes now. Every three or so minutes, he’d check his phone, perking up hopefully, only to see that he hadn’t gotten a text from Phil, at which point he’d deflate again.

Phil had always been there when Dan needed him, he thought, unable to fight off a hint of bitterness. Part of him still resented Phil for leaving him and Dan hated that part of himself. It wasn’t Phil’s job to make Dan feel better; what was he, a child? Dan had never properly learned how to cheer himself up. Whatever he tried never worked.

Dan groaned, the sound muffled by his pillow, and rolled over onto his back with a sigh. His eyes sightlessly traced the little bumps on the ceiling, mind somewhere else. He pondered calling Phil for a moment, but no. That would be far too disruptive; what if Phil was doing something important that required concentration and Dan distracted him?

Instead, he dragged himself out of bed, trudging into the bathroom. He blinked blearily at himself in the mirror, running a hand through his hobbit hair, which was still messy from last night’s sleep, trying to force it into a little more order.

The bags under his eyes were dark today, and Dan thought absentmindedly that if Phil had been there, he probably would’ve slept better last night. As it was, he’d tossed and turned for hours.

On the bright side, Phil couldn’t eat cereal that wasn’t his, Dan thought dully as he poured himself a bowl. Maybe he should have been enjoying having the place to himself, but somehow he wasn’t having fun as he ate his slightly mushy cereal for brunch.

Dan left the bowl in the sink, plopping himself lazily down on the sofa. Fumbling for the remote, he turned on the TV, resigning himself to watching whatever was on. After a few minutes, his eyes glazed over as he stopped listening.

An engine stopped outside. Pausing the TV, Dan peeked out the blinds as the mailman—in this case, a woman, so maybe mailperson?—dropped an envelope into the mailbox. He waited the normal minute-and-a-half duration for the truck to drive away before bolting to the mailbox.

Dan hadn’t been corresponding with anyone via letters recently, so it was probably just the standard spam from the corporate entities that seemed to target him and Phil, but he never liked staying outside for very long. It wasn’t a very sunny day—in fact, it was gray today, clouds obscuring the sun—but the sentiment still stood, so as soon as he’d unlocked the mailbox and grabbed the envelope, he hurried back inside.

Dan slammed the wooden front door shut, standing with his back to said door as he faced his living room. Panting slightly, he stared down at the envelope in his hand as though he thought it would come to life and start trying to bite him. He shook his head—that was as unlikely to happen as it was for Phil’s potted plants to uproot themselves and do a little dance—forcing his other hand to move the distance necessary to rip open the envelope.

The way Dan unfolded the piece of paper inside the envelope was a sharp contrast with the way he’d opened the letter. Dan always opened envelopes with force, not bothering with any sort of neatness; unlike Phil, who was one of _those people_ who needed to painstakingly peel open the flap. His hands seemed to be shaking as he read the first words printed on the page in front of him in a handwriting that was very, very familiar to him.

_My darling Dan,_ the letter began in a slightly loopy, messy font that Dan instantly recognized as Phil’s. _How are you? I’m sure you must be worrying about me. While the thought is very flattering, we are not conjoined, despite the baking video we made for Halloween in 2017, and Dan Howell should get himself a life that doesn’t involve spending ALL of his time with me. (I know, I know, hypocritical, right?)_

Dan scoffed, migrating over to the sofa to read the rest of the letter.

(To be honest, he was relieved to hear from Phil. It wasn’t as though it had been very long since Phil had left, and Phil wasn’t bad at remembering to contact Dan, per se, but a part of Dan always carried the irrational fear that something bad had, or would, happen to Phil.)

_Now you’re wondering why I sent you a letter, which is perfectly reasonable, as I don’t send many these days. I don’t really have a reason to. But, truth be told, I’ve always wanted to send one like this. I romanticize letters in my head, and, well, who better to be romantic with than you?_

_So I wrote this letter, assuming that you’d start pacing and/or passive-aggressively trying to suffocate yourself with a pillow if I left for longer than one day. While we’ve always been satisfied with texting, I feel like letters hold a bigger part of a person than a text. They’re more personal. Like,_ I _held this letter and_ I _wrote on it in my own handwriting, and I like you enough to write more than a paragraph. I wanted to let you know I was thinking about you. And letters are sort of a place for you to ramble about things you think the other person would want to hear about._

_Letters are also a physical thing. There’s something cool about the way you can hold them in your hand. Sure, you could always send an email, and the other person could print it out, but then you wouldn’t have their handwriting, would you?_

_Handwriting tells a lot about a person. If it’s neat, then they’re methodical and think things through. If it’s big, then they have a lot of self-confidence, or at least want to make it_ look _like they do._

Dan supposed that was true. Phil’s handwriting tended to be large, which represented the pure amount of energy he always had (at least around Dan).

_Your handwriting is always small and messy, the opposite of the two examples I gave. I think you rush because you’re a procrastinator, and in your avoidance of doing things, it gives you less time to actually do the things you want to do because you waited so long._

Sometimes Dan wasn’t sure how beneficial it was for him and Phil to know literally everything about one another, but he had to admit that what Phil had said in the letter was true.

Dan scanned the letter. It seemed like the rest of the letter was just Phil rambling about a dog he’d seen from the window of the room where he was staying, and Dan smiled, imagining Phil with his face pressed to the window to stare out at the dog.

At the bottom, it was signed, _Missing you too, Phil_ , but contrary to the signature, in smaller text it then read, _P.S. Dan, I want a dog :/ I would name it Meatball_ , and then, _P.P.S. Is having a great name for a dog enough justification to_ get _a dog?_

Dan sighed, though not unhappily, stretching as he stood. As usual, Phil had improved his day significantly, although that didn't stop Dan from missing him, just a little bit.

Dan had thought the letter would be a one-time occurrence, but the next day, another envelope was in his mailbox. In this letter, Phil attempted some poetry (it went very badly, but Dan still appreciated it) and scribbled in the margin the lyrics to a song he'd had stuck in his head while writing (Toxic by Britney Spears, of course).

Every day, Phil sent Dan a letter in the mail, and after a week, Dan now had a small pile accumulating on the table next to their bed. Each one contained words of reassurance and confidence that Dan could seize the day, and each time Dan opened an envelope, his heart swelled. He really didn't deserve someone like Phil, who, while not having his life together much more than Dan, seemed happier in his decisions and in himself than Dan felt.

He couldn't remember how long Phil had said his little trip was going to be, and so couldn't estimate the number of letters he'd be receiving, but on the eighth day, no letter came. Despite how much Phil reminded him not to jump to the worst possible conclusion, Dan assumed Phil had stopped sending letters and that he'd gotten too busy for Dan anymore.

Dan had been lying in bed for an hour when he heard someone fumbling with the doorknob on the front door. Heart pounding, he glanced at the time (9:02). He crept to the end of the hallway, watching the door with a mix of trepidation and adrenaline.

Dan could hear the jingle of keys as the person on the other side of the door failed to unlock it several times. His palms were sweaty as he peered around the corner at the door. Anyone who failed to open the door that many times was either breaking in, or…

A muffled yet triumphant “Aha!” came from the other side of the door, becoming clearer as the door actually opened. Dan blinked what must’ve been ten times, so it couldn’t have been a hallucination conjured by his sleep-deprived brain. It was really Phil.

Phil glanced up, catching sight of Dan watching and breaking into a grin. Dan barreled into Phil’s arms, very nearly knocking Phil over as he caught Dan in an embrace.

Dan buried his face in Phil’s hair, inhaling the familiar scent, that pleasant smell of Phil’s shampoo currently mixed with the smell of wherever he’d been staying. “I missed you,” he said softly.

“You got my letters, right?” asked Phil, arms wrapped almost as tightly around Dan as Dan’s were wrapped around him.

“Yeah.” Dan pulled back after a moment to gaze into Phil’s “blue-green-yellow” eyes, one hand on Phil’s cheek. Phil’s eyes were filled with warmth, and his smile, that _beautiful_ smile, was almost too much for Dan to handle in his tired state, but he narrowly prevented himself from crying.

“Why don’t we get out of the doorway?” Phil suggested, gently removing Dan’s hand from his face.

“Oh, yeah.” Dan stepped back to allow Phil room to enter with the luggage, closing the door behind him like a gentleman.

“How are you?” Phil asked. “Your eye bags look dark.” He raised an eyebrow at Dan, who felt sheepish and rushed to explain himself.

“I know you said to get to bed early because you know that I don’t sleep much unless I’m forced to, and I did!” justified Dan. “But… I couldn’t sleep much without you. It gets cold at night.” He pouted slightly, arms crossed, avoiding Phil’s eyes.

Phil looked at Dan, the look in his eyes soft. “You get off the hook this time,” he sighed, but he still had a small smile. “Come here.” He swept Dan into his arms again. While Phil had been the one away from home, and though Dan had never left, Dan hadn’t felt as _at home_ without Phil as he did now, enveloped in Phil’s embrace.

**Author's Note:**

> The funny thing is, there's actually another Phanfic called Letters. (That's completely a coincidence, I didn't know that when I wrote/named this fic) It's in the wlw-dnp series by yikesola, which is a fantastic read if you don't mind genderswaps !


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